


We Go Down (Jet Black Crow)

by fnowae



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, M/M, Magic, just read it maybe?, uhhh?, what else even is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 16:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13685121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fnowae/pseuds/fnowae
Summary: Something is tapping on Patrick’s window.This is problem because tonight is the first time in two weeks Patrick has been able to push the worry aside enough to actually get a decent amount of sleep in the first place, but now, at the ungodly hour of 2:17 am, there is something tapping at his window.





	We Go Down (Jet Black Crow)

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY VDAY!! beck wrote me a fic earlier and I forgot to get him something so this is his present now. beck I love you!!!!
> 
> I wrote this in two days, which is basically a record for me?? Enjoy!!

Something is tapping on Patrick’s window. 

This is problem because tonight is the first time in two weeks Patrick has been able to push the worry aside enough to actually get a decent amount of sleep in the first place, but now, at the ungodly hour of 2:17 am, there is something tapping at his window.

At first, Patrick is annoyed, because come on, can’t he finally be allowed to sleep? Then, he’s scared, because what if someone is waiting outside to kill him? That’s a thing that happens, right? Do murderers announce their presence by tapping the window before they break in and kill? Realizing this makes absolutely no sense, a flicker of hope emerges in Patrick’s chest instead. Despite the fact it makes absolutely no sense, he starts to wonder, as he throws himself out of bed and crosses his room to the window, if maybe it’s someone who’s not here to kill him, maybe it’s someone he _wants_ to see, maybe it’s-

It’s a bird. 

Patrick glares at the small black crow, still insistently tapping on the glass. He feels like an idiot for getting his hopes up. He feels like an idiot for believing, for a second, that, just like that, everything was just going to be okay again. 

“Fuck off,” he tells the crow, and gets right back into bed, even though he knows he’s not getting back to sleep. 

And he doesn’t. At seven the sun rises and Patrick decides to stop pretending he’s ever going to get any rest. He gets up and goes to make coffee. 

Patrick has just poured a cup when he hears it - more tapping on the window. His head snaps to the pane of glass above the kitchen sink to see the crow, _again_ , tapping like it’s trying to break the damn window. 

“I said fuck off!” Patrick yells, taking a sip of his coffee and staring daggers at the crow as if that’ll scare it off. 

The crow stops tapping and cocks its head to the side like it’s confused. Patrick freezes for a moment, remembering an article he read a month ago when he couldn’t sleep about how birds are actually ridiculously smart - maybe this crow is about to kill him and start taking over the human race. Actually, Patrick thinks fleetingly, that would be quite the way to go out. 

“Seriously. Go away,” he tells the bird, gesturing for it to fly off. After a brief moment of what almost looks like hesitation, it does. Patrick groans loudly. “Goddamn smart birds,” he mutters, “about to take over the fuckin’ world.”

He takes another swig of his coffee, and is about to go turn the television on and drown his feelings in questionable eighties movies when his phone rings. 

The caller ID informs him that it’s Joe, so he picks it up after a little hesitation, already knowing exactly what he’s in for. 

“How are you doing?” Joe asks immediately, which is what he’s been asking every time he’s called, every morning, for two weeks now. 

“Fucking horrible, thanks for asking,” Patrick responds mock cheerfully, sipping his coffee again and moving to sit on the couch. “Any news?” he asks, then after another moment, he adds almost sarcastically, “Have they found a body yet?”

“Patrick-“ Joe starts, and Patrick sighs and cuts him off. 

“No, no, I know they haven’t. I know what you’re gonna tell me. He’s not dead,” Patrick says. _Maybe that would be easier_ , he doesn’t say. 

“Patrick, there’s no evidence either way,” Joe says, slow and practiced, like he’s said it a million times before. (He has.) “He’s just...gone. No one knows what happened.”

“Sure. Right,” Patrick mumbles. He throws back the rest of his coffee in one gulp, and it’s still not enough to counteract the lack of sleep he’s had these past couple weeks. 

“I know you think-“ Joe begins, but again Patrick won’t let him finish. He’s had this conversation too many times. He knows what’s coming. 

“He left, Joe,” Patrick says sourly. “He’s not dead and he’s not here, so what the fuck do you think happened?”

Joe’s in a stalemate, and Patrick knows he knows it, because it always comes to this. Joe can’t say that something else happened, not without proof, and he can’t suggest that maybe Pete _is_ dead, because that’s giving up, so he’s just quiet. 

Then, like every morning, Joe murmurs, defeated, “I hope you feel better.”

“I won’t,” Patrick says, but Joe’s already hung up. 

///

It’s four hours before the crow comes back.

Patrick doesn’t even look this time, he just recognizes it by the sharp pecking sound. He sighs heavily, and yells, eyes still trained on the end credits of _Adventures In Babysitting_ , “Seriously, go the fuck away!”

The tapping doesn’t stop. It continues, and louder now. Finally, Patrick relents and gets up, stalking over to the window - the crow is at the living room one this time. When Patrick reaches the window, the bird stops tapping and drops something on the sill. 

Patrick narrows his eyes leaning towards the glass to observe the object. It’s a flower, likely pulled off one of the cherry blossom trees in the front yard. It’s pale pink and soft. Patrick frowns, trying to figure out what the hell the crow is doing. 

“Is that for me?” he finally asks, feeling like an _idiot_ , but hey, he’s read about a bird who brought some European lady a bunch of charms for a while, so maybe this is like that. Crows are just smart birds, he reminds himself, and this one is just being nice. 

The crow taps the windows again, and nods its head up. Patrick startles. “Fuckin’ hell, crow,” he blurts out, “you did _not_ just tell me to open my window.”

The crow only repeats the action. 

“Holy shit,” Patrick breathes out, trying to stay calm as he does exactly that, raising the window just a crack, so the crow itself won’t fit through. The crow pushes the blossom under the glass, then looks up expectantly. 

“Uh, thanks?” Patrick says, cautiously picking up the flower. It’s light and soft, sitting neatly in his hand. 

The crow repeats its peck-and-nod motion. 

“No,” Patrick says immediately, forgetting to feel weird about talking to a fucking bird. “You can’t come in.” He pushes the window back down, expecting the crow to...he doesn’t know, make some sort of protest, maybe?

The crow doesn’t do anything, though. It just turns and flies away. 

///

That night, Patrick is in bed, doing what he always does at this hour - trying to text Pete. 

Pete hasn’t responded in two weeks, but every night Patrick sends a text anyways. They’ve gotten more and more desperate each night, but there’s never a response. 

Patrick is about to send tonight’s admittedly shorter, more hopeless message ( _Please, Pete, fucking please, I know you’re out there somewhere, come home_ ) when his finger mistakenly hits the top of his screen instead, sending his messages scrolling up. Right to the last texts he and Pete actually exchanged. 

There’s one from Pete: _I’m so sorry about what happened tonight. I didn’t mean to start anything. Please just talk to me. You’re right, we do need to do that more._ Then there’s Patrick’s response: _Give me a fucking breather, Pete. We can talk tomorrow._

That’s the last thing Patrick said to Pete before he disappeared. He hates it, hates that _that’s_ what they left off on. 

As usual, his text is delivered, and there’s no response. It doesn’t even tell him _Read 12:01 am_. Pete isn’t even ignoring his messages - he’s not looking in the first place. 

“Fuck you,” Patrick says to his phone. 

That doesn’t get a response either. 

///

The next morning, the tapping is back the second Patrick opens his eyes. 

He’d gotten a miraculous five hours of sleep, but he still doesn’t like being woken up by the return of this stupid fucking bird that just won’t quit. 

“Really?” he groans out, getting out of bed and stalking over to the window. The crow is waiting there again, holding something else this time. It drops the object when Patrick gets to the window - this time, it’s a stone. A small, smooth, almost glassy blue-grey rock. The bird pecks at it, then taps the window and nods up like it had yesterday. 

“You’re a fucking freaky bird, you know that?” Patrick mutters, but he opens the window anyways - still just a crack, so the crow can’t do anything but slide the stone under. 

The crow doesn’t try to signal for the window to be raised higher this time. It just waits expectantly for a moment more, then turns and flies off. 

Patrick is almost about to _call after_ the thing, as if he didn’t seem crazy enough for talking to a bird already, but his phone rings. 

Patrick sighs. It’s time for his daily repetitive chat with Joe. He goes to answer it. 

///

It doesn’t even take the crow a full day to return this time - just as the sun is setting, it’s back, tapping on the bathroom window this time while Patrick’s busy drying his hands. 

“You’re insistent, aren’t you?” Patrick says, shaking the last of the moisture off and turning to see what the bird has now. 

On cue, it drops a rusted penny on the sill. Then, exactly like it always has, it taps the glass and nods. 

Patrick shakes his head as he gives the bird a centimeter of space to push the coin through. “I can’t believe I’m going along with this,” he says as the crow shoves the penny inside. It hesitates a moment, then taps and nods again. 

“I said no,” Patrick responds immediately. “No birds in my house.”

The crow taps and nods again, then again, and again. 

“No!” Patrick says, louder. The crow startles, and doesn’t tap again. It waits a moment, then flies off. 

“I’m going insane,” Patrick tells the windowsill where the bird used to be. 

He puts the penny on his counter, where the flower and rock are already waiting. 

///

The next morning, the crow returns right after Patrick hangs up on Joe. It drops something, then taps and nods again. 

“What are you doing, worshipping me or something?” Patricks asks as he pushes up the window so the crow can push a tiny red piece of smoothed broken glass under. “Are you trying to pay rent? I’m never gonna let you in, you know.” 

The bird, of course, doesn’t respond. It taps and nods again, as usual, and as usual Patrick says, “No.” 

The crow stills for a moment, then taps, but this time doesn’t nod up. It points its head down instead. 

Patrick frowns. “Hey, crow, come on, I’m sorry. I’m still not gonna let you in, but you can, like...hang on my windowsill whenever.” As an afterthought, he adds, “And...I appreciate the presents.”

The crow taps and points down again. Patrick shakes his head. 

“Sorry,” he says, actually finding himself meaning it, and closes the window.

///

The crow isn’t back until the next morning, when Patrick is inspecting his small collection of gifts and trying to find some sort of meaning in the shit a bird has been dropping on his windowsill. So far, he’s got nothing. 

The tapping resumes, and Patrick isn’t even surprised when he turns to see the crow with a bundle of twigs held in its beak. 

“You aren’t putting those inside,” Patrick says, walking over to the window and crossing his arms. 

The bird drops the sticks, taps and nods. 

“Those are _dirty_ ,” Patrick insists. 

The bird taps and nods again, more fervently. 

“Fine.” Patrick pushes the window up a bit. “But like...just one.”

Patrick isn’t sure why he’d expected the crow to understand that, because it sure as hell doesn’t. It immediately starts pushing all the sticks around on the windowsill, and a couple fall onto Patrick’s counter, scattering bits of dirt. 

“That’s why I said no,” Patrick complains, shoving the twigs out the window. The bird squawks, sounding almost offended. “I said no!” Patrick repeats. 

The bird turns away immediately, flying off like it’s in a hurry. 

“Hey! Crow!” Patrick calls after it. “I’m sorry I threw off your sticks!” 

The crow doesn’t seem to hear. 

///

It’s back, though, within two hours, holding something new. It’s a ribbon this time, pale orange and silky. The crow taps and nods without dropping this gift first. 

Patrick has about had it. 

“Look,” he begins, yanking the window up an inch instinctually as he does, “I don’t know what your problem is! I’m not gonna give you anything, and I’m not letting you in! I’m having a hard fucking time right now, and I don’t need a weird bird stalking me!” He takes a breath for a moment, watching as the crow ignores his yelling and pushes the ribbon inside. Patrick takes another breath, inhaling sharply, and spits out, “I don’t _want_ that! I don’t want any of this! Not that _you_ care, you’re a fucking _bird_ , but my fucking fiancé _left me_ , or at least I’m pretty sure he did, he might be dead, I don’t even _know_ , he just up and disappeared, and I’m pretty sure it’s because I said some stupid shit about how we don’t communicate enough, and then when I had the chance _I_ didn’t communicate, and now he hates me, and I don’t need to deal with an annoying fucking crow on top of that!” He’s shaking by the time he’s done, scowling at the poor bird still sitting on the windowsill. 

The crow is absolutely still for a moment, then, slowly and carefully, it takes the end of the ribbon back in its beak and flies off again. 

“Yeah,” Patrick mutters to himself. “Why don’t you just up and fucking leave, too.”

///

That night is the worst in a while. 

Patrick opens his messages to type another text that’s doomed to be unanswered, but he starts to type and he just _can’t_. All he can see are the nearly three weeks’ worth of unseen pleading, begging, and ranting, all of it for nothing. He can’t say anything he hasn’t already said. Pete’s gone, and it doesn’t look like he’s planning on coming back. And Patrick is going to have to stop trying to make him. 

He doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to give up, but god, he knows it isn’t worth it. Tears stream down his face as he stares at the six words he’d sent last night. 

_I don’t want to lose you._

They burn into his eyes as he lets out more shaky sobs, so loud he barely hears the tapping on his window. 

Patrick’s head snaps up to see the crow, waiting on the windowsill again. Patrick isn’t sure why it’s back, isn’t sure why it would want to return after he’d gone off at it like he had and rejected its last gift, and he really doesn’t want to deal with it again, but his legs carry him out of bed against his will, and he finds himself back at the damn window. 

The crow has a gift again. Patrick almost refuses, almost turns right back around, because he is so fucking done with this pestilent fucking crow, but then he sees what it is. 

Patrick yanks the window open, not even caring if it’s high enough for the crow to get in, and holds his hand out. 

“Give it,” he chokes, and the crow dutifully does just that, dropping a small metal object into Patrick’s palm. 

It’s a ring. And it’s not just any ring - it’s thin and metallic black and engraved with silver vines and it’s _Pete’s_. The crow has just dropped Pete’s engagement ring into Patrick’s hand. 

Patrick stares at it, his eyes still teary from earlier, and now welling up with fresh tears again. He isn’t sure what this means, isn’t sure where it came from or how this crow got it, isn’t sure if Pete threw it away or maybe he _is_ dead - nothing makes sense anymore. 

The crow takes a slow step across the threshold, like it’s afraid Patrick will reprimand it. He doesn’t, and when it sees it’s allowed, the crow takes another step, now fully inside the house. 

“Where did you get this?” Patrick breathes out, a single tear tumbling down his cheek and landing right on the crow’s shiny black feathers. 

The crow, obviously, doesn’t answer. Rather, it leans in and taps the ring, then moves to Patrick’s finger and taps the one there. 

Patrick had _forgotten_ his ring, actually, forgotten to ever take it off, even while he slept, and forgotten he even had it in the first place. It matches Pete’s, but the silver vines are engraved in gold. The crow taps it again, then the black ring, and suddenly everything clicks into place. It doesn’t make _any_ sense, and yet somehow it makes all the sense in the world. 

“Pete?” Patrick chokes out, eyes wide, and before he can take another breath he’s got an armful of Pete - fully human Pete. 

“Shit!” Patrick yells, not expecting the sudden weight against him, and they both tumble backwards, landing hard on the floor. That’s gonna be sore in the morning, Patrick knows, but he also doesn’t care. 

“Fuck, fuck, I didn’t think you’d figure it out, I was so scared-“ Pete starts to ramble, his face a mask of pure shock, which slowly transitions into a wild grin. “ _Fuck_ , Patrick, thank fuck-“

“What the hell happened?” Patrick finally blurts out, his brain managing to function enough to process that this _shouldn’t be happening_. Pete should not have been a crow. None of this should be happening. It doesn’t make _sense_.

“I - I’m not really sure.” Pete’s grin falls back to a frown. “I...we fought, and I just walked off, which I shouldn’t have, I know, but I needed to cool down, and...you said I needed to learn to communicate better - and you were right, you were right - and I just wanted to be able to prove I could and then suddenly...” Pete shakes his head, like he can’t even say it. “Yeah.” He pauses for a moment, as if to collect his thoughts, then continues, “It was a test, I think, I _had_ to communicate, had to get you to figure it out, but it was so _hard_ -“

“Holy _shit_ , Pete, no, I should’ve _known_ -“ Patrick interrupts, but even his interruption is interrupted. 

“No, no, I should’ve gotten to you sooner-“ Pete blurts out hurriedly. 

“No, it’s not your fault, if I could’ve gotten my head out of my ass-“

“-you would never have guessed that easily, I wouldn’t have either if it was me, how were you supposed to-“

“-I should’ve known it was you, like, psychically or something-“

Both Pete and Patrick suddenly fall silent, and then burst into laughter so simultaneously it’s almost as if they had planned it. 

“Fuck, Pete, I’m so glad you aren’t dead,” Patrick breathes out, his mouth turning up into a small, relieved grin. 

“I’m so glad I’m not a crow anymore,” Pete says, voice tinted with disgust, “because holy shit, that _sucked_.”

Patrick chuckles, wrapping his arms right around Pete and pulling him in for a gentle kiss. “I love you, you fucking dumbass.”

Pete beams. “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr @uselessgaypatrick !!
> 
> and y’all should comment if you enjoyed comments are what keeps me going <3
> 
> thanks for reading!!!!!!


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